One of the greatest figures of the
international socialist movement and yet one of the least
known, is James Connolly, who was, until his execution, the
organizer and leader of the Irish socialist movement. The
lives and works of the Continental and American socialist
leaders and thinkers are rather well known to the old and
new generations of revolutionary socialists. This is indeed a
paradox, for James Connolly was one of the most talented
of the socialist theoreticians of the new century. Unlike so
many socialist thinkers, his theoretical work was not an end in
itself, but corresponded to the requirements of the Irish labor
and independence movements, i.e., to concrete revolutionary
aims. It is not strange, therefore, that this great leader should
have met his death in a rdle, regarded as romantic by those
whose lives are completely intellectualizcd and cloistered, of
commandant of the Irish Citizen Army, which he helped to
organize for the concrete task of seizing power in Ireland and
proclaiming the Irish Republic free and independent from
British imperialism.
The life of James Connolly is not easy to assay, for the
general pattern out of which judgment is drawn in analysing
and describing the lives of other outstanding revolutionary
socialists is, in this case, greatly complicated by the specific
peculiarities of the country which gave birth to him. Amer-
ican and European socialist leaders grew up and developed in
a bourgeois milieu of fully developed capitalism. At the turn
of the century, the main processes of national unification in
Europe were completed. Even the backward countries of the
Continent were drawn into the vortex of bourgeois economy
and became entirely dependent upon the welfare, the ebbs
and flows of capitalism. Despite the intense nationalism en-
gendered bv the era of imperialism, it is possible to speak of
European capitalism as connoting one sector of that universal
order.
The reaction of the masses to the bitter exploitation which
accompanied the rising power of industrial and finance capi-
tahm led directly to the formation of the economic and po-
litical organizations of struggle of the proletariat and peas-
antry. Thus, by the year igoo, socialist and trade union organ-
izations made their appearance in all of the advanced coun-
tries of the world. Certainly the trade union movement had
already made its mark, and in most European countries the
trade union movement, heavily indebted to the efforts of the
socialist movement to establish it, remained under socialist
influence.
While part of the general process of industrialization was
visited upon Ireland, it was complicated, altered, influenced
and diverted by the singular fact that Ireland was a colonial
country, under the heel of British imperialism, for over seven
hundred years. As a predominantly peasant country, it had
experienced the ravages of an industrialization introduced by
a foreign power, but in agriculture and industry the over-
lords were interlopers from the center of the empire, England.
As o Young Socialist
James Connolly was born near Cloves, County Monaghan,
in Northern Ireland, on June 5, 1870. His proletarian fam-
ily migrated to Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1880 in the hope of
improving their economic position. It was there that Con-
nolly first began to work in the printing trade. Under age
(he was scarcely more than ten) and undersized, he and his
conniving boss would outwit government inspectors by having
him placed on a box, which permitted him to peer over the
type cases, giving the illusion of height and age. A more wily
inspector caused his discharge and he thereafter became a
baker's apprentice, an occupation which he dreaded. The
early morning hours and long days of labor made him always
dream and hope that the bakery would burn before his day's
work began. From the baking trade he drifted into a mosaic
tiling factory to learn another type of work.
During the entire period of his early youth and adoles-
cence, Connolly was an indefatigable student who educated
himself. He studied languages, history and economics .and at
an early age became active in the Scottish socialist movement.
John Leslie, the Scottish socialist, greatly influenced the young
Irishman and it was he who prevailed upon Connolly to re-
turn to Ireland to organize an Irish socialist movement. In
1896, at the age of s6, James Connolly, with his newly mar-
ried wife, arrived in Dublin, where he was to embark on a
career of socialist agitation and organization destined to cul-
minate in the great Easter Rebellion of 1916.
A Resume History of Ireland
Before one is able to evaluate the life and rdle of James
Connolly it is an indispensable requirement to trace, no mat-
ter how brieflly, the historical development of Ireland. Only
by such a review will one be enabled to understand the "pe-
culiarities" of Connolly's ideas, his writings and his deeds.
Ireland was the oldest colonial possession in the world,
having been subjected by the British as early as the isth cen-
tury. English domination of the island was not accomplished
r w .»
at once. The Irish clans were a fighting people and for more
than 500 years they resisted the occupation of their island by
the Norman and Anglo-Saxon marauders. But each successive
revolt was brutally suppressed. The struggles became weaker
and weaker, while the power of the invader grew. Finally, in
1798, the last great revolt was crushed. In 1801 the forced
union of England and Ireland was "legally" established under
the Crown.
The multiplying decades of the 19th century witnessed
the painful spoliation of that beautiful country by British
landlordism. The communal lands of the iTish peasants were
long ago destroyed. The land, which for many centuries had
belonged to the people, was now in the hands of foreign land-
lords, native landowners who made their peace with the in-
vader and who helped him in his conquest, and the Catholic
Church, which played its usual insidious role in support of
the enslavement of a people which had followed its religion.
(It was Connolly's opinion that the Church had hoped by this
union to bring about a return of Catholicism to England. It
therefore supported any and all indignities heaped upon the
Irish people.)
The economic reasons behind the terrifying exploitation
of the Irish peasantry is to he found in the profitability of
cattle raising and breeding in the latter half of the 18th cen-
tury. It was this single fact which led the British conquerors
to uproot the many-sided agricultural production of the Irish
peasant and to reduce it to a secondary position in the island's
economy. Ground landlords fenced in small farms to form
large grazing farms, including the commons. Small farmers
lost their means of existence. (See M. Beer, History of Brit-
ish Socialism, vol. I.) This annihilation of the Irish peasantry
gave rise to a multitude of organizations, all basing themselves
on the necessity of unending struggle against England, for the
restoration of the farming lands to the peasants and for the
restoration of Irish independence.
The destruction of the farm lands in favor of grazing pas-
tures usurped by the rich gave rise to the formation of the
"Whiteboys." This organization, which existed until about
1830, employed violence in the struggle against the great land-
lords, tearing down the fences which had marked off the lands
of the conquerors. They had hoped to reestablish the peasant
ownership of the land.
There, in brief, is the background to the situation which
brought about a change of relations between a section of the
Irish Protestants and Catholics. More and more they joined
hands in a common struggle against England. They were
influenced by the radical movement in England, by the Amer-
ican War of Independence and by the French Revolution.
The Protestant Irish furnished many thinkers and leaders
for the insurrectionary struggle against England. In October,
1791, they formed the United Irishmen, sent messages to Rous-
seau, Thomas Paine and Locke, contacted the London Corre-
sponding Society and conspired with the French government
to tree Ireland. But their insurrection failed, too.
For the next fifty years, the Irish continued to struggle
against hopeless odds. But the destruction of their agricul-
ture, the exploitation and impoverishment of the entire popu-
lation in order to enrich the British, led to successive famines
and physical deterioration of the race. As in Britain, during
the "industrial revolution," the British ruling classes and pro-
genitors of the present British aristocracy were interested in
genitors of the present British aristocracy were interested in
only one thing: profit. The treatment of the Irish people left
the world aghast.
World Interest in Ireland's Plight
It was not merely a question of the brutality of English
rule in Ireland. The movement of liberalism, which made its
appearance under various guises, the new labor organizations,
the socialists, at the head of whom stood Marx and Engels,
were all interested in the struggles of the Irish people for their
liberation, as a social question of paramount importance
for all the peoples of the world. This is not difficult to under-
stand, for England, the most powerful industrial nation in the
world, was setting the pattern for future imperialist conquest
as it set the pace for industrial exploitation.
The chartist movement of England was also involved in
the movement for Irish freedom. While there was no chartist
movement in Ireland, with its poor and backward proletariat,
it was that country which gave chartism its greatest orator in
Feargus O'Connor, and in "most trenchant writer" in Bron-
terre O'Brien. These individuals focused the attention of the
British workers on the Irish question. The intensity of the
struggle for the island's freedom led to the second national
petition of the chartist movement, issued April 12 to May 12,
1842, and signed by 3,315,752 workers. The document de-
clared:
Your petitioners complain of the many grievances borne by the peo-
ple of Ireland and contend that they are folly entided to a repeal of the
legislative union. (History of British Socialism, by M. Beer; vol. 2, p. 130.)
Only the Scottish and London delegates opposed the in-
clusion of a demand for repeal of the forced union upon Ire-
land.
Marx and Engels on Ireland
Friedrich Engels, who visited Ireland several times to gain
a first-hand knowledge of conditions on the Island, wrote a
great deal on the nature of the British conquest. He described
the effect of British exploitation of the Irish people in stirring
detail and won Marx's deep interest in the question which,
during their lifetime, was constantly brought before the Brit-
ish labor movement and the First International.
In a letter to Marx dated May 23, 1856, Engels graphically
described the painful conditions in Ireland in the following
way:
Gendarmes, priests, lawyers, bureaucrats, squires, in pleasing profu-
sion and a total absence of any and every industry, so that it would be
difficult to understand what all these parasitic growths found to live on if
the misery of the peasants did not supply the other half of ihe picture.
Ireland may be regarded as the lirst English colony and as one which
because of its proximity is still governed exactly in the old way, and here
one can already observe that die so-called liberty of English citizens is
based on the oppression of die colonies. I have never seen so many gen-
darme in any country, and the drink-sodden expression o£ die Prussian
gendarme is developed to its highest perfection here among the constabu-
lary, who arc armed with carbines, bayonets and handcuffs.
The country has been completely ruined by the English wars of con-
quest from 1100 to 1850 (for in reality both the war and. the slate of siege
lasted as long as that). How often have the Irish started to try and achieve
somediing, and every time they have been crushed, politically and indus-
trially. (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence, 1846-1895.)
In contrast to the host of "friends'* of Ireland, Marx and
Engels approached the question of her liberation from a class
point of view. They saw the struggle for Irish freedom as an
integral part of the struggle against capitalism, against all
forms of exploitation, as part of the liberative struggle for the
emancipation o£ all humanity and as a forerunner in the
struggle for socialism. On the basis of their observations, the
founders of scientific socialism knew that the Irish would con-
tinue to fight for freedom no matter how many defeats they
suffered. It was this conviction which led Marx to say in a
letter of November 2, 1867, to Engels:
I used to think the separation of Ireland from England impossible. I
now think it is inevitable. (Marx-Engels, Correspondence, p. 128.)
Several weeks later we find Marx, still occupied with the
Irish question, writing to Engels on the needs of the island
and saying:
The next question is, what shall we advise the English workers? In
my opinion they must make the repeal of the Union (In short the affair
of 1783, only democratized and adapted to the conditions of the time)
into an article of their pronunaamento----What the Irish need it:
(1) Self-government and independence from England.
(2) An agrarian revolution. With the best will in the world the Eng-
lish cannot accomplish this for them, but they can give them the legal
means of accomplishing it for themselves.... (Marx-EngeU, Correspond-
ence, p. 229.)
Marx and Engels endeavored to orient the British work-
ing class movement to struggle for Irish freedom, without
which they could not hope to achieve their own emancipa-
tion. On November 29, 1869, writing from London, Marx
said to his friend Kugelmann:
I have become more and more convinced-and the only question is
to bring; this conviction home to the English working class—that it can
never do anything decisive here in England until it separates its policy
with regard to Ireland in the most definite way from the policy of the
ruling classes, until it not only makes common cause with the Irish but
actually takes the initiative in cUssolving the Union established in 1801
and replacing it by a free federal relationship. And, indeed, this must be
done, not as a matter of sympathy with Ireland, but as a demand made
in the interests of the English proletariat. If not, the English people will
remain tied to the leading-strings of the ruling classes, because it must
join them in a common front against Ireland. Every one of its movements
in England itself is crippled by the disunion with the Irish, who form a
very important section of the working class in England. The primary
condition of emancipation here—the overthrow of the English landed oli-
garchy—remains impossible because its position here cannot be stormed
so long as it maintains its strongly entrenched outposts in Ireland. (Marx-
Engels, Correspondence, pp. 878-279.)
A further illustration of how keenly Marx regarded the
Irish question, especially when considering the question of
freedom of the English workers, is his letter to Engels of De-
cember 10, 1869. He wrote:
As to the Irish question,.. The way I shall put forward the matter
next Tuesday [meeting of the general council of the International] is this:
that quite apart from all phrases about "international" and "humane"
justice for Ireland—which are to be taken for granted in the International
Council—it is in the direct and absolute interest of the English working
class to get rid of their present connection with Ireland. And this is my
most complete conviction and for reasons which in part I cannot tell the
English workers themselves. For a long lime 1 believed that it would be
possible to overthrow the Irish regime by English working class ascend-
ancy. I always expressed this point of view in the New York Tribune.
Deeper study has now convinced me of the opposite. The English work-
ing working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of
Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish
question is so important for the social movement in general. (Marx-En-
gels. Correspondence, pp. 280-821.)
The Arrival of Connolly in Ireland
No great progress was made in the liberation of Ireland
during the 19th century. There was no lack of struggles, how-
ever. Sinn Feinianism, despite heroic campaigns against Brit-
ish imperialism, was defeated at all decisive turns of the strug-
gle. The Feinian organization, a petty bourgeois "socialistic"
movement, vainly sought the establishment of a republic and
the overthrow of the tenant system. The story is the same
when one examines the history of the Irish Land League.
Their self-sacrificing battles were unavailing. No small reason
for these defeats, although by no means the principal one, was
the absence of a clear social doctrine around which these
purely nationalist movements could grow and join their strug-
gle to those of other oppressed peoples against common ex-
ploiters.
The first effort to turn the Irish people in other directions
was made by James Connolly. As a Marxian socialist he
sought to combine the nationalist aims of the Irish people
with socialist theory, toward economic, political and social
emancipation. Thus, he came to Ireland in 1896 with the
single purpose of establishing a socialist organization to ac-
complish the freedom of the Irish people.
Immediately upon his arrival on the island he proceeded
to form the Irish Socialist Republican Party. Note the name
he gave to the party. It was his way of surmounting the ob-
stacles which a socialist organization inevitably encounters in
a country where nationalism is the dominant spirit. As he
often said, he sought a union of genuine nationalism to so-
cialist theory and practice on the ground that they were com-
patible under Irish conditions. The program of the Irish So-
cialist Republican Party written by him with the above in
mind, he summarized as follows:
The establishment of an Irish socialist republic based upon the public
ownership by the people of Ireland of the land and instruments of pro-
duction, distribution and exchange. Agriculture to be administered as a
public function, undeT boards of management elected by the agricultural
population and responsible to them and to the nation at large. All other
forms of labor necessary to the well-being of the community to be con-
ducted on the same principles. {The Irish Labor Movement, by W. P.
Ryan, p. 166.)
The demands he appended to the program, and which
exclusively applied to Ireland, are not unlike those propa-
gated by the Fourth Internationalist movement of the present
era.
In organizing an Irish socialist movement, he began a cam-
paign against the "politicians" and "nationalists" who were
conservative on the question of property and who opposed
every effort of the proletariat to improve its economic and
social position. Realizing the tremendous obstacles which
pure nationalism created in the building of the party, he al-
ways insisted on posing the social as well as the nationalist
aspects of Ireland's struggle—its completely dual character. In
an introduction to Erin's Hope, reprinted in the Harp Libra-
ry, he summarizes his view of the Irish question in the follow-
ing words:
The ISRP was founded in Dublin in 1896" by a few workingmen whom
the writer had succeeded in interesting in his proposition that the two
currents of revolutionary thought in Ireland—the socialist and the na-
tional—were not antagonistic but complementary, and that the Irish so-
cialist was in reality the best Irish patriot, but in order to convince the
Irish people of that fact he roust rest his arguments upon the facts of
Irish history and be champion against the subjection of Ireland and all
that it implies. That the Irish question was at bottom an economic ques-
tion and that the economic struggle must first be able to function freely
nationally before it could Eunction internationally, and as socialists were
opposed to all oppression, so should they ever be foremost in the daily
battle against all its manifestations, social and political. (Ibid., p. 169.)
The First Appearance of Socialism
The early years of the Irish socialist movement were ex-
tremely difficult. In this sense, the organization merely expe-
rienced the same problems of poverty, isolation and opposi-
tion which always characterized the history of other socialist
movements originating under identical conditions.
Connolly was its single functionary. He was its theoreti-
cian, political director, agitator and writer. As a pioneer
movement, all menial tasks of party organization fell upon his
shoulders. But these he accepted with infectious cheerfulness
and discharged them all with high spirit.
In pursuit of the single aim of establishing a Marxian so-
cialist party and yet combining its theories with the revolu-
tionary traditions of Irish nationalism, he based himself upon
the experiences and struggle of Wolfe Tone and James Fintan
Lalor. But always the appeal was directly to the Irish working
class as the one section of the Irish people which could lead
the struggle for freedom.
During the Boer War, the party, under Connolly's leader-
ship, opposed British imperialism and announced its support
of the Dutch settlers. On the occasion of Queen Victoria's
visit to Dublin in 1900, he sought to address the people in the
streets, attacking Her Majesty's government. Despite arrest,
he maintained an anti-imperialist agitation in the columns of
the Workers Republic, the organ of the Irish Socialist Repub-
lican Party which first appeared in 1898.
The issuance of the paper was a difficult task. Beginning
in 1898, it ran for eleven numbers and then stopped. Publi-
cation was resumed in 1899 and it continued irregularly until
1903, when it ceased altogether. Its final reappearance came
in 1915, the crucial years of the Irish struggle, and the final
issue was the eighty-fifth in its lifespan.
The backwardness of Ireland and the problems it created
in building a socialist movement was strikingly described by
Connolly in his introduction to the American edition of
Erin's Hope, But its accomplishments were unmistakable:
It is no exaggeration to say that this organization and its policy com-
pletely revolutionized advanced politics in Ireland. When it was first ini-
tiated the word 'republic" was looked upon as a word to be only whis-
pcrcd among intimates; the socialists boldly advised the driving frorn
public life of all who would not accept it. The thought of revolution was
the exclusive possession of a few remnants of the secret societies o£ a
past generation and was never mentioned by them except with heads
closely together and eyes fearfully glancing round; the socialists broke
through this ridiculous secrecy and in hundreds of thousands of pieces
of literature scattered through the country announced their purpose to
muster all the forces of labor for a revolutionary reconstruction.
Life in the United States
In 1903, Connolly was invited to the United States for a
lecture tour. The fortunes of the party in Ireland were in-
deed low and he had hoped through his tour to win interest
and support from the American socialist movement and the
militant Irish who migrated to the New World. His return to
Ireland was short-lived. The progress of the movement was
indeed slow and discouraging. When disintegration followed
and Connolly found himself black-listed throughout Ireland,
he decided to take his family to the United States.
While in the United States he worked as an insurance
agent in Troy and factory hand in Newark. But these jobs
were merely interludes until he could once again resume his
full-time work for socialism. His activity and agitation for
socialism always led to a search for new means of employment.
In the fluid state of the political movement of the American
working class, he, like so many others, was a member of the
IWW, the Socialist Labor Party and finally the Socialist Party.
In 1908 he moved to New York City to take up his duties as
the organizernf the Irish Socialist Federation and editor of its
paper. The Harp. Each new venture meant additional prob-
lems of moving his family, which now included three daugh-
ters and one boy. But there were no family difficulties, for it
seemed that everyone in the Connolly household was as much
concerned with the building of the movement and Jim's activ-
itics as he himself.
Internationalist though he was, the problem of the Irish
revolution was to him paramount. Even his work among the
American Irish bore the influence of the problems of the
homeland. In his advice to them, he wrote in The Harp, in
1908:
We propose to show all the workers of our fighting race that socialism
will make them better fighters without being less Irish: we propose to ad-
rise the Irish who are socialists now to organize their forces as Irish and
get again in touch with the organized bodies of literary, educational and
revolutionary Irish; we propose to make a campaign among our country-
men and to rely for our method mainly on Imparting to them a correct
interpretation of the facts of Irish history, past and present; we propose
to take control of the Irish vote out of the hands of die slimy seolnlni,
who use it to boost their political and business interests, to the undoing
of the Irish as well as the American toiler."
There is a great similarity in the conduct of Connolly
during his stay in the United States and that of the Bolsheviks
in exile. While he carried on a literary and speaking cam-
paign to advance the socialist movement and industrial union,
ism in America, his real interest was Ireland and the develop-
ment of the Irish revolution. As a matter of fact, Connolly
never once regarded his migration to the United Statei as any-
thing permanent. And when the labor movement in Ireland
began to manifest a new restlessness, when new forces made
their appearance, when the objective situation became more
tense, his return to Ireland was only a matter of days.
Connolly's Return to Ireland
Connolly's Return to Ireland
Again, in 1910, the Connolly family was on the move; they
returned to Dublin. The Harp was transferred with them and
now Connolly found a sub-editor in Jim Larkin and their
cooperation marked one of the brightest periods in Irish his-
tory.
Upon his return to Ireland, Connolly embarked on a new
tactic of cooperation with any militant nationalists for Irish
freedom, whether or not they were socialists. The single
thought behind this tactic was the realization of the need for
the involvement of all elements of the Irish nation for the
coining revolution which he regarded as inevitable!
He now organized the Irish Socialist Party and became a
member of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union,
which Jim Larkin had established. In this period, Connolly
regarded the unionization of the Irish working class as indis-
pensable to the accomplishment of the Irish liberation and
together with Larkin insisted that this unionization must be
carried out on an industrial basis. Membership in the Irish
Transport and General Workers Union was open to all who
toiled and it was this single fact which was responsible for the
rapid growth of militant trade unionism. From that moment,
the tide of the class struggle moved on unabated.
The growth of the union struck fear in the hearts of the
Irish bourgeoisie, whose existence was based upon coopera-
tion with England. They were determined to smash the prol-
etarian organizations lest they become so powerful that noth-
ing could impede their road to power. In the several years
since Connolly's return, he carried on an uninterrupted agi-
tation for the Irish rebellion, not merely as a struggle for na-
tionalist liberation, but as a social revolution. It was this sin-
gular fact that led the Dublin employers in 1913 to combine
their resources and strength for the purpose of destroying the
Transport and General Workers Union. If they could suc-
ceed in this, "Connollyism." i.e.. Larkin's, militancy and Con-
nolly's doctrine of industrial unionism, would be rendered
helpless.
The Offensive of the Bourgeoisie
The Dublin employers announced a lockout against the
working class of the city. In retaliation the union declared a
strike against the employers. The importation of strike-break-
ers was a direct demonstration that the bosses were determined
to starve the organized workers into submission in a situation
where the liquidation of the union and the dismissal of its
leaders were demanded.
Connolly was no cloistered theoretician of Irish independ-
ence. He was an active participant in the strike and shortly
afterward was arrested. As a protest against the action of the
employers and their government, Connolly went on a hunger
strike. This act had the effect of gaining widespread sympa-
thy and support, finally reaching the shores of England and
enlisting the aid of the workers there.
The real culprit behind the Dublin employers was the
British government. It understood the deep significance of
Connolly's activities and saw in the union the material source
for the realization of Irish independence. That is why the
rulers of Ireland were always so vicious and adamant in any
struggle involving the working class. Connolly had with some
degree of success taught the most advanced elements of the
Irish people that their struggle for independence was linked
to the class struggle, that every act in behalf of an improve-
ment of the position of the working class would hasten by the
degree of that improvement the independence of their coun-
try. So that, even though the workers suffered a defeat in
struggles of 1913, they were prepared by those battles for the
more fateful days of 1916.
The Formation of the Irish Citizen Army
At a time when war threatened Europe's peace, with
England being inevitably drawn into the conflict and occu-
pied with the problem of defending its empire, and out of the
strike which had fired the determination of the workers to
struggle, there arose the Irish Citizen Army. The formation
of the army on March 22, '914, under the ideological leader-
ship of James Connolly, marked a turning point in modern
Irish history. The twofold purpose of the army was heralded
throughout the island: it was to defend the workers, the peo-
ple, against the brutality of the bosses, landlords and the Brit-
ish; it was to organize the armed struggle for independence!
The Irish Citizen Army began at once to grow. At its head
stood Connolly, the Countess Markievicz, W. Partridge, P. T.
Daly, Sean O'Cathasaigh and the venerable Captain White,
who directed its military training. The army could be seen
daily in Croydon Park taking its drills and marching through
Dublin's streets. Its headquarters was at Liberty Hall, which
housed the Transport and General Workers Union.
In the midst of a revolutionary internal situation which
threatened to assume proportions of a social upheaval, the
First World War broke out on the Continent. The war did
not come as a surprise to Connolly and his closest followers.
But he was sadly affected by the manner in which the Social-
ist International, of which he was an adherent, betrayed its
principles of proletarian internationalism and class solidarity.
The wretched conduct of the parties of the International,
wherein the leadership of the national sections, in a frenzied
wave of social patriotism, rallied to the support of their impe-
rialist governments, drove ConnoHy deeper into the Irish
movement.
Connolly remained, nonetheless, an impeccable revolution-
ary internationalist. His life in this period served as an answer
to the craven reformists in all countries. His attitude toward
the war was acute and was stated in simple terms. He regarded
the war as imperialist and deplored the bloodbath of the pro-
letariat. If one must die, he would say, it would be better to
die for a new world than in the trenches of an imperialist war
in the interests of tyrants and profiteers.
On August 15, 1914, in the article "A Continental Revolu-
tion," he counseled the Irish people to continue the fight for
independence, to utilize Britain's involvement in the hostili-
ties to secure this freedom. One can observe from his writings
a feverish haste to quickly achieve this freedom. All his writ-
ings were now devoted to orienting the Irish people toward
a struggle for power. In the above mentioned article he wrote:
I make 00 war on patriotism, never have done. But against the pa-
triotism of capitalism—the patriotism which makes the Interest of capi-
talism the supreme test of right and duty—I place the patriotism of the
working class, the patriotism which judges every public act by its effect
on the fortunes of those who toil. That which is good for the working
class I esteem patriotic.... I regard each nation as the possessor of a defi-
nite contribution to the common stock of civilization, and 1 regard the
capitalist class of each nation as being the logical and natural enemy of
the national culture which constitutes that definite contribution. There-
fore, the stronger I am in my affection for national -tradition, literature,
language and sympathies, the more firmly rooted am I In my opposition
to that capitalist class which in its soulless lust for power and gold would
bronze the nation as in a mortar.
And this was not mere rhetoric. He meant every word he
wrote. He brilliantly explained his political program from
week to week and from month to month, until the clash of
arms became the reality which determined who would rule
his nation. On August 22, 1914, in Forward, he wrote:
The war of a subject nation for independence, for its right to live its
own life in Its own way, may and can be justified as holy and righteous:
the wax of a subject class to free itself from the debasing conditions of
economic and political slavery should at all times choose its own weapons
and esteem all as sacred Instruments of righteousness; but the war of na-
tion against nation in the interest of royal freebooter* and cosmopolitan
brigands is a thing accursed.
The brilliance of his dialectics stood out in a world of con-
fusion and chaos. His work and his writings matched the ef-
forts of the small band of internationalists in Switzerald who
were also engaged in the great struggle for liberation from
capitalism and imperialist war. But the heroism of Connolly
is all the more remarkable in that his development and work
took place in isolation from his ideological comrades in Swit-
zerland and other parts of Europe. Yet their writings, thoughts
and actions were identical. This is not difficult to understand
since they all proceeded from the same set of principles, the
theories of Marxism.
As a man of action Connolly was able to translate theory
into practice and, more important than that, to apply to the
specific conditions under which he lived, the most trenchant
thoughts of Marx and Engels. Having already characterized
the war in Europe as imperialist, he proceeded to concretize
his analysis for the purpose of directing the Irish labor move-
ment toward the insurrectionary struggle for national libera-
tion. Thus he wrote:
The true revolutionist should ever call into tction on his side the en-
tire sum of all the forces and factors of political and social discontent.
We believe that in tiroes of peace we should work along the lines of
peace to strengthen the nation ... but we also believe that in times of war
we should act as in war.
Moreover, he viewed the Irish Revolution, not as an iso-
lated act of an oppressed people, but as a forerunner and as
part of the international, colonial and class revolution for
freedom. He wrote:
Starling 'in. Ireland may yet set the torch to a European conDagra-
(ion that will not burn out until the last throne and the last capitalist
bond and debenture are shrivelled on the funeral pyre of the last war-
lord.
Both 1914 and 1915 were preparatory years for what Con-
nolly regarded as a certainty: the military struggle for national
independence. The fortunes of the Irish Citizen Army were
varied. The class conflict became more intense as the war
worsened the economic conditions of the people as a whole
and the tremendous dissatisfaction of the people, arising from
their poverty, stood out in sharp contrast to the well-being of
the Irish upper classes and their English overlords. The army
continued its drilling for battle. Arms were procured. Under
Connolly the aim of the movement was made public: The
union and the army were preparing to seize power, to estab-
lish the republic and proclaim the separation of Ireland from
England, to set up the United Irish Republic.
The Inevitability of a Clash
But the Irish people were not alone in their preparations.
The ruling classes, in their desperate fright, called upon the
British for aid and this aid came in the form of armed bat-
talions with superior weapons. As Easter, 1916, approached,
a clash was inevitable! Here the movement was faced with a
choice: Either surrender without a struggle and thus postpone
the fight for national independence for many decades or pre-
pare for the struggle, no matter what the consequence might
be, in the hope that the commencement of the fight for free-
dom might impel such a momentous conflict as would result
in freedom for Ireland.
Connolly fully understood the dilemma which confronted
his movement. He knew that the failure to fight would result
in the disintegration of the entire movement for liberation.
A split in the Volunteers, the conservative middle class mili-
tary organization for Irish independence, made possible col-
laboration with its militant majority under the leadership of
P. H. Pearse. In the few days of doubt, Connolly supplied the
leadership and reminded the population of what he had writ-
ten in his three-act play which explained why it was necessary
for the movement to fight. He wrote:
The Irish Citizen Army in its constitution pledges its members to
tight for a republican freedom for Ireland. Its members are, therefore, of
the number who believe that at the call of duty they may have to lay
down their lives for Ireland, and have so trained themselves that at the
worst the laying down of tiieir lives shall constitute the starting point of
another glorious tradition—a tradition that will keep alive the soul of
the nation.
The fateful week of Easter, 1916, had arrived. The ruling
classes had gone over to the offensive, seeking to wipe out the
Citizen Army and the Irish Transport and General Workers
Union. Jim Larkin, who was in the United States to raise
funds and material support for the army, was prevented from
returning to Ireland by the authorities. It is not difficult to
surmise at whose request this refusal was granted. But the
situation would not wait. The question was no longer: shall
we fight or retreat? In die situation where surrender meant
annihilation, only one course remained: wage the fight in the
hope of victory, or, at worst, keep alive the revolutionary tra-
ditions of the Irish struggle for independence. The choice
was not difficult to foresee. Connolly was keenly aware of
the historic import of the situation and in his position of com-
mandant called for the mobilization of the army, mapped the
campaign for the occupation of Dublin and began to rally the
workers to paralyze the efficiency of the ruling class to resist.
Bourgeois Desperation and the Easter Rebellion
The battle broke out with the army under Connolly seiz-
ing various parts of central Dublin and occupying the main
post office. For one week the Dublin proletariat kept up its
heroic fight against overwhelming military odds. Remnants
of the army were being rounded up and finally the British sur-
rounded the post office, which housed the squadrons under
Connolly's command. The fight was a bitter one. Many of
his closest friends and collaborators had given up their lives
in this monumental demonstration against class and national
oppression. And Connolly, too, was critically wounded and
suffering from the excessive loss of blood. Constant shelling
and the desire to save his men compelled him to surrender.
The aftermath was dreadful to behold. The bloody British
tyrants proceeded to weak their vengeance on the small band
of faithfuls. All the leading personalities were sought out and
indicted for taking arms against His Majesty's government.
And while some amnesties were granted, the real leaders,
especially Connolly, were doomed. World-wide protests in be-
half of the revolutionists were unavailing. Special interces-
sions in behalf of Connolly were rejected. The royal govern-
ment demanded his life and his life it took. On Easter Sun-
day, 1916, the wounded Connolly, unable to stand or walk,
was wheeled out in a chair to face his executioners. This great
and good man was serene and composed in the knowledge that
even though he lost, the battles were not over and victory
would yet come.
And so the riflemen took aim at this glorious proletarian
martyr as he sat in a chair, propped up to make the aim easier
and his death certain. At the command of the executioner, the
Irish people lost their greatest figure of the twentieth century
and the world socialist movement was deprived of one of its
most engaging theoreticians and leaders.
In Defense of the Irish Martyrs
A great deal has been written on the Irish rebellion deplor-
ing the road taken by Connolly. To many it is unthinkable
that such an astute person could have gone into the batde
against insurmountable odds. Yet they do not truly under-
stand Ireland, its revolutionary traditions, nor needs of the
world movement of proletarian emancipation. For there is no
doubt that the Easter Rebellion was one of the decisive ele-
ments which led to the subsequent spurious independence
granted to Island, an independence which divided the island
on religious grounds (actually to preserve British interests).
In his analysis and defense of the Irish Rebellion, Lenin
demonstrated that the immaturity of the revolt was an imma-
turity based on the fact that the Europen proletariat failed to
respond to the lead given it by Connolly and his movement.
But beyond that Lenin very aptly places the Rebellion in its
proper historical place. In the article, "The Results of the
Discussion on Self-Determination," contained in the book,
Against the Stream, he wrote:
Those who can term such a rising a putsch are either the worst kind
of reactionaries or hopelessly doctrinaire, Incapable of imagining the so-
cial revolution as a living phenomenon.... The misfortune of the Irish
lay in the fact that their rising was untimely, since the rising of the Euro-
pean proletariat was not yet ripe. Capitalism is not so harmoniously con
strucicd that separate sources of risings can suddenly unite without failun
of overthrow. On the contrary! the difference in time, the difference ant
dissimilarity in the place of the risings act as a guarantee for the greatnes
and depth of the joint movement; it is only by unUmely, partially anc
consequently unsuccessful attempts at revolutionary risings that the masse
will again experience, learn, assemble their forces, recognize their trui
leaders, the socialist proletarians, and thereby prepare the joint attack
just as isolated strikes, town and national demonstrations, mutinies in th«
army, peasant uprisings, etc, prepared the general attack in 1905.
That Connolly understood the meaning of Lenin's posi
tion is clear from the manner in which he prepared the Irish
rebellion and explained its relation to an impending Euro
pean revolution. Certainly there was something peculiar!)
Irish in the determination with which he pursued his single
aim. As an admirer and interpreter of James Fintan Lalor h<
must have known of and accepted Lalor's defense of the man)
defeated Irish rebellions when the latter wrote:
Any man who tells you that an act of armed resistance—even if offered
by ten men only-even if offered by men armed only with stones—any mar
who tells you that such an act of resistance is premature, imprudent 01
dangerous—any and every such man should at once be spurned and spai
at. For, remark you this and recollect it, that somewhere, and somehow
and by somebody, a beginning must be made and that the first act of re
sistancc is always, and must be ever, premature, imprudent and danger
ous. Lexington was premature, Bunker's Hill was imprudent, and ever
Trenton was. dangerous."
I have tried, in this brief sketch, to compress a study of the
life of James Connolly. Mindful of its many shortcomings, it
is hoped that it may serve toward a better acquaintance wit!
one of the truly heroic figures of the international working
class movement in the struggle for socialism.
New International, New York, June 1942